THE WOOD
Ten acres is but a small area for a bit of woodland, yet it can be made
apparently much larger by well-considered treatment. As the years pass
and the different portions answer to careful guidance, I am myself
surprised to see the number and wonderful variety of the pictures of
sylvan beauty that it displays throughout the year. I did not specially
aim at variety, but, guided by the natural conditions of each region,
tried to think out how best they might be fostered and perhaps a little
bettered.
The only way in which variety of aspect was deliberately chosen was in
the way of thinning out the natural growths. It was a wood of seedling
trees that had come up naturally after an old wood of Scotch Fir had
been cut down, and it seemed well to clear away all but one, or in
some cases two kinds of trees in the several regions. Even in this the
intention was to secure simplicity rather than variety, so that in
moving about the ground there should be one thing at a time to see and
enjoy. It is just this quality of singleness or simplicity of aim that
I find wanting in gardens in general, where one may see quantities of
the best plants grandly grown and yet no garden pictures.
Of course one has to remember that there are many minds to which this
need of an artist's treatment of garden and woodland does not appeal,
just as there are some who do not care for music or for poetry, or
who see no difference between the sculpture of the old Greeks and
that of any modern artist who is not of the first rank, or to whom
architectural refinement is as an unknown language. And in the case of
the more superficial enjoyment of flowers one has sympathy too. For
a love of flowers, of any kind, however shallow, is a sentiment that
makes for human sympathy and kindness, and is in itself uplifting, as
everything must be that is a source of reverence and admiration. Still,
the object of this book is to draw attention, however slightly and
imperfectly, to the better ways of gardening, and to bring to bear upon
the subject some consideration of that combination of common sense,
sense of beauty and artistic knowledge that can make plain ground and
growing things into a year-long succession of living pictures. Common
sense I put first, because it restrains from any sort of folly or sham
or affectation. Sense of beauty is the gift of God, for which those
who have received it in good measure can never be thankful enough.
The nurturing of this gift through long years of study, observation,
and close application in any one of the ways in which fine art finds
expression is the training of the artist's brain and heart and hand.
The better a human mind is trained to the perception of beauty the more
opportunities will it find of exercising this precious gift and the
more directly will it be brought to bear upon even the very simplest
matters of everyday life, and always to their bettering.
So it was in the wood of young seedling trees, where Oak and Holly,
Birch, Beech and Mountain Ash, came up together in a close thicket of
young saplings. It seemed well to consider, in the first place, how to
bring something like order into the mixed jumble, and, the better to do
this, to appeal to the little trees themselves and see what they had to
say about it.
The ground runs on a natural slope downward to the north, or, to be
more exact, as the highest point is at one corner, its surface is
tilted diagonally all over. So, beginning at the lower end of the
woody growth, near the place where the house some day might stand, the
first thing that appeared was a well-grown Holly, and rather near it,
another; both older trees than the more recent seedling growth. Close
to the second Holly was a young Birch, the trunk about four inches
thick and already in the early pride of its silvering bark. That was
enough to prompt the decision that this part of the wood should be of
silver Birch and Holly, so nearly all other growths were cut down or
pulled up. A hundred yards higher up there were some strong young Oaks,
then some Beeches, and, all over the top of the ground a thick growth
of young Scotch Fir, while the western region had a good sprinkling of
promising Spanish Chestnut.
[Illustration: _DAFFODILS BY A WOODLAND PATH._]
[Illustration: _WILD PRIMROSES IN THIN WOODLAND._ (_From a Picture by
Henry Moon._)]
All these natural groupings were accepted, and a first thinning was
made of the smallest stuff of other kinds. But it was done with the
most careful watching, for there were to be no harsh frontiers. One
kind of tree was to join hands with the next, and often a distinct
deviation was made to the general rule. For the beautiful growth of the
future wood was the thing that mattered, rather than obedience to any
inflexible law.
Now, after twenty years, the saplings have become trees and the
preponderance of one kind of tree at a time has given a feeling of
repose and dignity. Here and there something exceptional occurs, but
it causes interest, not confusion. Five woodland walks pass upward
through the trees; every one has its own character, while its details
change during the progress--never abruptly but in leisurely sequence;
as if inviting the quiet stroller to stop a moment to enjoy some
little woodland suavity, and then gently enticing him to go further,
with agreeable anticipation of what may come next. And if I may judge
by the pleasure that these woodland ways give to some of my friends
that I know are in sympathy with what I am trying to do, and by my own
thankful delight in them, I may take it that my little sylvan pictures
have come fairly right, so that I may ask my reader to go with me in
spirit through some of them.
My house, a big cottage, stands facing a little to the east of south,
just below the wood. The windows of the sitting-room and its outer
door, which stands open in all fine summer weather, look up a straight
wide grassy way, the vista being ended by a fine old Scotch Fir with
a background of dark wood. This old Fir and one other, and a number
in and near the southern hedge, are all that remain of the older wood
which was all of Scotch Fir.
This green wood walk, being the widest and most important, is treated
more boldly than the others--with groups of Rhododendrons in the region
rather near the house, and for the rest only a biggish patch of the
two North American Brambles, the white-flowered _Rubus nutkanus_, and
the rosy _R. odoratus_. In spring the western region of tall Spanish
Chestnuts, which begins just beyond the Rhododendrons, is carpeted with
Poets' Narcissus; the note of tender white blossom being taken up and
repeated by the bloom-clouds of _Amelanchier_, that charming little
woodland flowering tree whose use in such ways is so much neglected.
Close to the ground in the distance the light comes with brilliant
effect through the young leaves of a wide-spread carpet of Lily of the
Valley, whose clusters of sweet little white bells will be a delight to
see a month hence.
The Rhododendrons are carefully grouped for colour--pink, white, rose
and red of the best qualities are in the sunniest part, while, kept
well apart from them, near the tall Chestnuts and rejoicing in their
partial shade, are the purple colourings, of as pure and cool a purple
as may be found among carefully selected _ponticum_ seedlings and the
few named kinds that associate well with them. Some details of this
planting were given at length in my former book "Wood and Garden."
[Illustration: _THE WIDE WOOD-PATH._]
[Illustration: _CISTUS LAURIFOLIUS AT THE SUNNY ENTRANCE OF THE FERN
WALK._]
Among the Rhododendrons, at points carefully devised to be of good
effect, either from the house or from various points of the lawn and
grass paths, are strong groups of _Lilium auratum_; they give a new
picture of flower-beauty in the late summer and autumn and till near
the end of October. The dark, strong foliage makes the best possible
setting for the Lilies, and gives each group of them its fullest value.
Another, narrower path, more to the east, is called the Fern walk,
because, besides the general growth of Bracken that clothes the whole
of the wood, there are groups of common hardy Ferns in easy patches,
planted in such a way as to suggest that they grew there naturally. The
Male Fern, the beautiful Dilated Shield Fern, and Polypody are native
to the ground, and it was easy to place these, in some cases merely
adding to a naturally grown tuft, so that they look quite at home.
Lady Fern, _Blechnum_ and _Osmunda_, and Oak and Beech Ferns have been
added, the _Osmunda_ in a depression that collects the water from any
storms of rain.
At the beginning of all these paths I took some pains to make the
garden melt imperceptibly into the wood, and in each case to do it a
different way. Where this path begins the lawn ends at a group of Oak,
Holly and Cistus, with an undergrowth of Gaultheria and Andromeda.
The larger trees are to the left and the small evergreen shrubs on a
rocky mound to the right. Within a few yards the turf path becomes a
true wood path. Just as wild gardening should never look like garden
gardening, or, as it so sadly often does, like garden plants gone
astray and quite out of place, so wood paths should never look like
garden paths. There must be no hard edges, no conscious boundaries. The
wood path is merely an easy way that the eye just perceives and the
foot follows. It dies away imperceptibly on either side into the floor
of the wood and is of exactly the same nature, only that it is smooth
and easy and is not encumbered by projecting tree-roots, Bracken or
Bramble, these being all removed when the path is made.
If it is open enough to allow of the growth of grass, and the grass has
to be cut, and is cut with a machine, then a man with a faghook must
follow to cut away slantingly the hard edge of standing grass that is
left on each side. For the track of the machine not only leaves the
hard, unlovely edges, but also brings into the wood the incongruous
sentiment of that discipline of trimness which belongs to the garden,
and that, even there in its own place, is often overdone.
Now we are in the true wood-path among Oaks and Birches. Looking round,
the view is here and there stopped by prosperous-looking Hollies,
but for the most part one can see a fair way into the wood. In April
the wood-floor is plentifully furnished with Daffodils. Here, in the
region furthest removed from the white Poets' Daffodil of the upper
ground, they are all of trumpet kinds, and the greater number of strong
yellow colour. For the Daffodils range through the wood in a regular
sequence of kinds that is not only the prettiest way to have them, but
that I have often found, in the case of people who did not know their
Daffodils well, served to make the whole story of their general kinds
and relationships clear and plain; the hybrids of each group standing
between the parent kinds; these again leading through other hybrids
to further clearly defined species, ending with the pure trumpets. As
the sorts are intergrouped at their edges, so that at least two removes
are in view at one time, the lesson in the general relationship of
kinds is easily learnt.
[Illustration: _A WOOD-PATH AMONG CHESTNUTS._]
[Illustration: _A WOOD-PATH AMONG BIRCHES._]
They are planted, not in patches but in long drifts, a way that not
only shows the plant in good number to better advantage, but that is
singularly happy in its effect in the woodland landscape. This is
specially noticeable towards the close of the day, when the sunlight,
yellowing as it nears the horizon, lights up the long stretches
of yellow bloom with an increase of colour strength, while the
wide-stretching shadow-lengths throw the woodland shades into large
_phrases_ of broadened mass, all subdued and harmonised by the same
yellow light that illuminates the long level ranks of golden bloom.
From this same walk in June, looking westward through the Birch stems,
the value of the careful colour-scheme of the Rhododendrons is fully
felt. They are about a hundred yards away, and their mass is broken
by the groups of intervening tree-trunks, but their brightness is all
the more apparent seen from under the nearer roofing mass of tree-top,
and the yellowing light makes the intended colour-effect still more
successful by throwing its warm tone over the whole.
But nearer at hand the Fern walk has its own little pictures. In early
summer there are patches of _Trillium_, the white Wood Lily, in cool
hollows among the ferns, and, some twenty paces further up, another
wider group of the same. Between the two, spreading through a mossy
bank, in and out among the ferns and right down to the path, next to
a coming patch of Oak Fern, is a charming little white flower. Its
rambling roots thread their way under the mossy carpet, and every few
inches throw up a neat little stem and leaves crowned with a starry
flower of tenderest white. It is _Trientalis_, a native of our most
northern hill-woods, the daintiest of all woodland flowers.
To right and left white Foxgloves spire up among the Bracken. When the
Foxglove-seed is ripe, we remember places in the wood where tree-stumps
were grubbed last winter. A little of the seed is scattered in these
places and raked in. Meanwhile one forgets all about it till two years
afterwards there are the stately Foxgloves. It is good to see their
strong spikes of solid bloom standing six to seven feet high, and
then to look down again at the lowly _Trientalis_ and to note how the
tender little blossom, poised on its thread-like stem, holds its own in
interest and importance.
[Illustration: _CISTUS CYPRIUS IN THE CISTUS CLEARING._]
[Illustration: _CISTUS BY THE WOOD-PATH._]
Further up the Fern walk, near the upper group of _Trillium_, are some
patches of a plant with roundish, glittering leaves. It is a North
American _Asarum_ (_A. virginicum_); the curious wax-like brown and
greenish flower, after the usual manner of its kind, is short-stalked
and hidden at the base of the leaf-stems. Near it, and growing
close to the ground in a tuft of dark-green moss, is an interesting
plant--_Goodyera repens_, a terrestrial Orchid. One might easily
pass it by, for its curiously white-veined leaves are half hidden
in the moss, and its spike of pale greenish white flower is not
conspicuous; but, knowing it is there, I never pass without kneeling
down, both to admire its beauty and to ensure its well-being by a
careful removal of a little of the deep moss here and there where it
threatens too close an invasion.
Now there comes a break in the Fern walk, or rather it takes another
character. The end of one of the wide green ways that we call the Lily
path comes into it on the right, and, immediately beyond this, stands
the second of the great Scotch Firs of the older wood. The trunk, at
five feet from the ground, has a girth of nine and a half feet. The
colour of the rugged bark is a wonder of lovely tones of cool greys
and greens, and of a luminous deep brown in the fissures and cavities.
Where the outer layers have flaked off it is a warm reddish grey, of a
quality that is almost peculiar to itself. This great tree's storm-rent
head towers up some seventy feet, far above the surrounding foliage of
Oak and Birch. Close to its foot, and showing behind it as one comes up
the Fern walk, are a Holly and a Mountain Ash.
This spot is a meeting-place of several ways. On the right the
wide green of the Lily path; then, still bearing diagonally to the
right, one of the ways into the region of Azalia and Cistus; then,
straight past the big tree, a wood walk carpeted with Whortleberry
and passing through a whole Whortleberry region under Oaks, Hollies
and Beeches, and, lastly, the path which is the continuation of the
Fern walk. Looking along it one sees, a little way ahead, a closer
shade of trees, for the most part Oak, but before entering this, on
the right-hand gently rising bank, is a sheet of bright green leaves,
closely set in May with neat spikes of white bloom. It is _Smilacina
bifolia_, otherwise known as _Maianthemum bifolium_. The pretty little
plant has taken to the place in a way that rejoices the heart of the
wild gardener, joining in perfect accord with the natural growth of
short Whortleberry and a background of the graceful fronds of Dilated
Shield Fern, and looking as if it was of spontaneous growth.
Now the path passes a large Holly, laced through and through with wild
Honeysuckle. The Honeysuckle stems that run up into the tree look like
great ropes, and a quantity of the small ends come showering out of the
tree-top and over the path, like a tangled veil of small cordage.
The path has been steadily rising, and now the ascent is a little
steeper. The character of the trees is changing; Oaks are giving way to
Scotch Firs. Just where this change begins the bank to right and left
is covered with the fresh, strong greenery of _Gaultheria Shallon_.
About twenty years ago a few small pieces were planted. Now it is a
mass of close green growth two to three feet high and thirty paces
long, and extending for several yards into the wood to right and left.
In a light, peaty soil such as this, it is the best of undershrubs. It
is in full leaf-beauty in the dead of winter, while in early summer it
bears clusters of good flowers of the Arbutus type. These are followed
by handsome dark berries nearly as large as black currants, covered
with a blue-grey bloom.
[Illustration: _GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FLOWER._]
[Illustration: _GAULTHERIA SHALLON IN FRUIT._]
Now the path crosses another of the broad turfy ways, but here the
turf is all of Heath; a fourteen-foot wide road of grey-rosy bloom
in August; and now we are in the topmost region of Scotch Fir, with
undergrowth of Whortleberry.
The wood path next to this goes nearly straight up through the middle
of the ground. It begins at another point of the small lawn next
the house, and passes first by a turf walk through a mounded region
of small shrubs and carefully placed pieces of the local sandstone.
Andromeda, Skimmia, and Alpenrose have grown into solid masses, so that
the rocky ridges peer out only here and there. And when my friends
say, "But then, what a chance you had with that shelf of rock coming
naturally out of the ground," I feel the glowing warmth of an inward
smile and think that perhaps the stones have not been so badly placed.
Near the middle of the woody ground a space was cleared that would
be large enough to be sunny throughout the greater part of the day.
This was for Cistuses. It is one of the compensations for gardening on
the poorest of soils that these delightful shrubs do well with only
the preparation of digging up and loosening the sand, for my soil is
nothing better. The kinds that are best in the woody landscape are _C.
laurifolius_ and _C. cyprius_; _laurifolius_ is the hardiest, _cyprius_
rather the more beautiful, with its three-and-a-half-inch wide flowers
of tenderest white with a red-purple blotch at the base of each petal.
Its growth, also, is rather more free and graceful. It is the kind
usually sold as _ladaniferus_, and flowers in July. _C. laurifolius_ is
a bush of rather denser habit; it bears an abundance of bloom rather
smaller than that of _C. cyprius_, and without the coloured blotch.
But when it grows old and some of its stems are borne down and lie
along the ground, the habit changes and it acquires a free pictorial
character. These two large-growing Cistuses are admirable for wild
planting in sunny wood edges. The illustrations (pp. 16, 17) show their
use, not only in their own ground, but by the sides of the grassy ways
and the regions where the wood paths leave the lawn.
The sheltered, sunny Cistus clearing has an undergrowth of wild heaths
that are native to the ground, but a very few other Heaths are added,
namely, _Erica ciliata_ and the Cornish Heath; and there is a fine
patch at the joining of two of the little grassy paths of the white
form of the Irish Heath (_Menziesia polifolia_).
[Illustration: _WHITE IRISH HEATH._]
[Illustration: _THE SPRING GARDEN FROM_ =D= _ON PLAN. "NEAR ROCK" IS TO
THE LEFT._]